{"collection":"chr","html_url":"https://unchartedknowledge.5gfusion.net/browse/chr/ecf/101/1010254.htm","path":"chr/ecf/101/1010254.htm","source_url":"https://sacred-texts.com/chr/ecf/101/1010254.htm","text":"Chapter XXI.\u2014Of the Explanation of the Words, \u201cThe Earth Was Invisible.\u201d\n30. And as concerns the understanding of p. 184 the following words, out of all those truths he selected one to himself, who saith, \u201cBut the earth was invisible and without form, and darkness was upon the deep,\u201d\u2014that is, \u201cThat corporeal thing, which God made, was as yet the formless matter of corporeal things, without order, without light.\u201d He taketh another, who saith, \u201cBut the earth was invisible and without form, and darkness was upon the deep,\u201d\u2014that is, \u201cThis whole, which is called heaven and earth, was as yet formless and darksome matter, out of which the corporeal heaven and the corporeal earth were to be made, with all things therein which are known to our corporeal senses.\u201d He, another, who saith, \u201cBut the earth was invisible and without form, and darkness was upon the deep,\u201d\u2014that is, \u201cThis whole, which is called heaven and earth, was as yet a formless and darksome matter, out of which were to be made that intelligible heaven, which is otherwise called the heaven of heavens, and the earth, namely, the whole corporeal nature, under which name may also be comprised this corporeal heaven,\u2014that is, from which every invisible and visible creature would be created.\u201d He, another, who saith, \u201cBut the carth was invisible and without form, and darkness was upon the deep,\u201d\u2014\u201cThe Scripture called not that formlessness by the name of heaven and earth, but that formlessness itself,\u201d saith he, \u201calready was, which he named the earth invisible and formless and the darksome deep, of which he had said before, that God had made the heaven and the earth, namely, the spiritual and corporeal creature.\u201d He, another, who saith, \u201cBut the earth was invisible and formless, and darkness was upon the deep,\u201d\u2014that is, \u201cThere was already a formless matter, whereof the Scripture before said, that God had made heaven and earth, namely, the entire corporeal mass of the world, divided into two very great parts, the superior and the inferior, with all those familiar and known creatures which are in them.\u201d","title":"Nicene and Post Nicene-Fathers, Vol. I: The Confessions: ...","type":"page"}